Sharing your best ideas for innovation in teaching sustainability can be rewarding.
By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC
The Kendall College School of Culinary Arts and CAFÉ are proud to announce that entries are being accepted for the 2012 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award. The first national award dedicated to building the body of teaching knowledge for all sustainability educators, it recognizes innovative teaching and projects that could have applications for other culinary programs across the country.
All secondary and postsecondary culinary-arts and baking/pastry programs are eligible to enter. Entries will be judged based on the level of innovation; perceived impact on students’ understanding of sustainability practices and their importance; and the ease with which elements of the winning program can be implemented by other culinary programs nationwide.
How much more are consumers willing to pay for sustainable cuisine?
Consumers want and need to eat out, and the foodservice industry has a huge carbon footprint. Getting industry operators and consumers on the “green” bandwagon is necessary to minimize the impact that restaurants have on the environment in the future. But how willing are patrons to embrace this change?
According to a recent Mintel report, just more than half (57%) of respondents are willing to pay more for local and sustainable fare; however, the majority of those are only willing to pay a mere 1% to 5% more.
“Green and sustainable attributes pale in comparison to the leading restaurant decision drivers of menu selection, prices and convenient location,” says Eric Giandelone, foodservice director at Mintel. “However, these initiatives support the leading attributes to help a restaurant stand apart and will become more important as the green movement continues to progress.”
The truth about GMOs.
By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE
In this world, we live surrounded by myths and even believe some of them. Lobsters scream when you boil them. Eating bananas makes you more appealing to mosquitoes. And a company has genetically engineered and marketed a tomato containing a gene from the arctic flounder to make the tomato more resistant to frost and cold. Like most myths, this one has a kernel of truth, but turns out it’s more of a red herring than a fishy tomato. Yes, back in 1991, DNA Plant Technologies did experiment with this, but it was a total failure, was never marketed, and the idea died in the laboratory. So please feel free to continue eating tomatoes.
As educators, we often stay away from controversial issues like genetically modified organisms (GMOs), either because we don’t feel secure in our own knowledge of them or because we see them as too political and polarizing. And in the culinary world, as we look to many respected chefs who are dedicated to organic and sustainable foods, GMOs elicit a “Hell, no, we won’t go there” response. But is that response built on fact or fiction? Where did they get their information? Was it factual and provided by a neutral source?
Senator Schumer launches a push to secure new funding to help The Culinary Institute of America and Hudson Valley farmers get products on local shelves and into local restaurants.
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer on September 30 called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to tap the federal Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and the Beginning Farmer Development program to fund The Culinary Institute of America's (CIA) Sustainable Farming Program. The CIA, working with local farms, food stores, restaurants and small businesses, is creating a Sustainable Farming Program that will help local farmers grow products that are currently in demand at local stores and restaurants in a sustainable manner. The program seeks to connect local growers with new, local markets based on the needs of Hudson Valley stores and restaurants. With funding from the USDA, the CIA will be able to expand its reach and help more farmers get their products from their fields and into local markets.
As educators of future culinarians, we have a unique opportunity to help mold the future of the American diet.
By Dana Cox
Particularly since we entered the current recession, there’s been a renewed hue and cry to buy goods that are “made in the USA.” While I wholeheartedly agree with that principle, I find it puzzling that many of those same people think nothing about eating fruit or vegetables that have traveled thousands of miles from far-flung countries before arriving at the local supermarket. The most recent figures from the United States Department of Agriculture show that imports of fresh fruit and vegetables between 1990 and 2006 surged from $2.7 billion to $7.9 billion.
With those imports has come year-round availability of everything from strawberries to rutabagas. That may sound great on the surface, but there are profound environmental and economic consequences. It has also caused us to lose touch with our food, how and where it’s produced, and the whole concept of seasonality. This dawning realization has given rise to the locavore movement that seeks to bring us closer to the food we eat by forging connections with those who produce it. Recognizing that the foods we eat have a tremendous political, environmental, social and health impact, locavores aim to source as much food as possible from a 100-150 mile radius.
Many free materials are readily at your disposal to teach the “3 Rs” of handling excess prepared food, food scraps and used oil more sustainably.
By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE
Many of us grew up with that wise adage, but it’s even more true today. In sustainability, when we talk about waste, the focus is usually on recycling and composting—basically, how to divert our waste from the landfill. However, that’s not the most sustainable solution. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have developed a program that advocates use of its “Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy.” We often talk about the “3 Rs”—reduce, reuse or recycle—and this program prioritizes those options.
Reduce. The most sustainable waste option is to not create it in the first place. According to Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), Americans routinely toss out 40% of all the food produced each year. And it’s important to keep in mind that along with the wasted food, we also wasted the water, energy and other resources used to produce, harvest and transport it to our kitchens.
By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE
Colorado State University’s hospitality-management program wins the third-annual CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award.
From procurement to recycling and composting waste, from introductory classes to senior seminar, for the Colorado State University (CSU) Hospitality Management Program at Fort Collins, Colo., sustainability is always at the forefront of decision-making.
In recognition of those efforts, the program was presented with the 2011 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award at the recent CAFÉ Leadership Conference in Providence, R.I. The award included $1,000 from Kendall College, free registration at the conference and a commemorative plaque.
By Anselm Doering
Commercial oven cleaners contain some of the most toxic chemicals found in any restaurant kitchen. What works just as well and is safe on the environment? This tip and nine more will help you be more ecologically and even economically sound.
Coke and Pop Rocks can kill. Elvis is coming back. And green cleaning a restaurant is burdensome, expensive and less effective than the traditional toxic approach.
I cringe each time I hear this. The green-cleaning myth, that is. Elvis, I’m not so sure. He may indeed be alive and well and living in Las Vegas.
But, when it comes to green cleaning restaurants, there are many quick, simple, environmentally preferable procedures that SAVE money and IMPROVE cleaning. Immediately.
Here are 10 easy and effective ways to improve green cleaning at your restaurant:
On Earth Day and every day, Culinary Institute of America students go green in many ways.
Aspiring chefs at all three of The Culinary Institute of America's (CIA) domestic campuses in New York, California and Texas learn more than just how to cook. The CIA is also teaching them the importance of chefs as stewards of the environment—both in and out of the kitchen. This is becoming increasingly important as sustainability is prominently featured in restaurants across the country, and the National Restaurant Association cites local sourcing and sustainability as five of the top seven restaurant trends for 2011.
Each year the Hyde Park, N.Y., campus buys $750,000 worth of produce, dairy, eggs, honey and meat from 30 Hudson Valley producers. In the Napa Valley, the CIA's Greystone campus sources much of its food locally—in many cases the food is grown by the students as part of the Greystone Green Thumbs, who manage the student-run garden.
By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE
Kendall College and NRA Conserve are founding sponsors of the International Foodservice Sustainability Symposium.
For the last few years, you’ve heard me talk about sustainability as a journey, mostly comprised of baby steps, and the opportunity, every once in a while, to take a giant leap. That’s what’s happening with the first-ever International Foodservice Sustainability Symposium (IFSS), May 24-25, 2011, immediately following NRA Show 2011.